O'Neill praises 'brilliant' Barry

MARTIN O'Neill believes Gareth Barry is good enough to walk into any Premiership side in the country right now - including Manchester United and Chelsea - and has tipped the 25-year-old to move on and become a Villa legend in the coming years.

MARTIN O'Neill believes Gareth Barry is good enough to walk into any Premiership side in the country right now - including Manchester United and Chelsea - and has tipped the 25-year-old to move on and become a Villa legend in the coming years.

O'Neill is fulsome in his praise of his skipper for his form this season.

With interest in the utility player sure to resurface now that the transfer window is open, O'Neill is simply relieved that Villa snubbed overtures from both Tottenham and Portsmouth in the summer.

Barry returns to the Villa line-up at Manchester United on Sunday after a one-game ban for his sending-off at Charlton and O'Neill said: "That gives us a big lift. I think he's been absolutely fantastic this year.

"Way back at the start of the season, I thought he'd be capable of getting into most Premiership sides, but he's capable of playing in any one of them, including the top teams, absolutely.

"I just think he's capable of playing for any of the big teams. Not just because of his attitude, but his attempts to get forward from left-back."

Barry has been asked to play out of position in defence for a large part of the season, but it has been a challenge he has risen to.

"In the Charlton game he became a threat, he was the one who won the penalty, he was in their box - he's been brilliant, really great," O'Neill continued.

"You wonder where we might be without him - he's been that good. Now, we want to strengthen the side, just to help people like him."

O'Neill has backed Barry to end his long absence from the England set-up.

He won the last of his eight senior caps almost four years ago in a 2-1 friendly victory against Serbia and Montenegro.

"England will come. I know I've been saying that for a while but his form in that position has been so decent it's hard to ignore him. If he stays clear of injury then there's no reason why he can't be thinking about playing for England in the not too distant future. You could be looking at him becoming one of Villa's great players."

Barry's fresh legs have come as a major boost to Villa at Old Trafford with O'Neill admitting his players were out on their feet after their heroics against Chelsea on Tuesday.

"We've played a lot of games with the whole squad so we're trying to give them a bit of a rest," he said. "The boys who played on Tuesday night were in for a warmdown and then off for a couple of days."